Aftermath
by PaperCutVictim
Summary: At the end of her war, surrounded by ruined computers and empty shell casings, Yuri stands victorious... Yet the taste of victory is nothing like what she had ever imagined.


Before the story starts, just wanna say real quick that I have no idea if Yurippe's siblings have ever been given names, but I took the liberty of doing so here. Makoto would be the girl with the red hair (who I imagined was the second oldest after Yuri), Shouko the one with the short brown hair (the third child), and Yuuki would be the boy. If they have ever officially been given names, don't cut my head off, cuz I honestly was not aware. And don't expect a strict adherence to the ending of episode 12; this is more of my own take on it, and I admit that I did take more than just a handful of liberties. Don't get me wrong, I liked it well enough, I just thought I'd have a bit of fun with it. ^_^;

Oh, and real quick, just so I cover my bases here: I expect some people may think that I show some sort of disdain for God here. It is not my personal view of God, or any religion; I merely wrote it this way because that was the impression I got from Yuri. Hell, I'll be the first to admit that if I had gone through what she'd gone through, they would've needed to create a new word for insanity. If I offend anyone, I deeply apologize, for such was never my intention.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Angel Beats, and barring some extraordinary twists of fate, I have no chance in hell of ever doing so.

* * *

_It's over._

As that thought ran through her head, Yuri felt her legs weakening, forcing her to sit down hard on the linoleum floor. It was only then that she realized how terribly her body was aching, her legs actually trembling with exhaustion now that the time for action was past. Wearily, she set her two Berettas down on the floor; she wouldn't be needing them now. Slowly, she looked around at the wreckage she had wrought, absent of any soul but herself. Even that annoying NPC... whoever he was... even he wasn't here. Around her, there was nothing but bullet-ridden computers, sparking as they continued to desperately bring some semblance of life to their ruined shells. The shell casings lay silent, and the only noise she could hear aside from the crackling of electronics was the lingering ringing in her ears, protesting the abuse she had put them through. Automatic gunfire in such an enclosed place, she thought musingly, was hardly good for a human's eardrums.

_It's over..._

A soft scoff that could pass for a pathetic attempt at laughter passed her lips. Yuri spared her surroundings another scan, a crooked, humorless smile on her face.

_Victory... This isn't quite what I had imagined it to be..._

Not that she had exactly planned what victory would be like. It wasn't like she had imagined confetti, streamers, a whole goddamn parade; nothing like that. She hadn't even really counted on winning. After all, if God was an all-powerful entity like the Christians kept saying, how could she have hoped to win? Still, even if it was a suicidal fight, one that she had believed since the beginning it ultimately would be, she had gone forward all the same. The fate that had befallen her and her loved ones had been far too cruel, too vile to have possibly been part of some all-powerful, all-fucking-benevolent being's "plan." Her siblings, murdered before her while she cried and hysterically pleaded for their lives. Her parents, reduced to ghosts by the horrific tragedy that had befallen their family. And she... Once Yuri had been able to pull herself out of her numb, depressed state after the younger Nakamura children's funeral, she had been a transformed person. Where she had once been a personable, friendly, albeit slightly eccentric person, the girl she became was cold, cynical, cruel.

She remembered what she was like in those days... almost a being driven purely by a thirst for violence. Yuri remembered wandering the streets after school, sometimes even ditching classes so she could pick fights with the delinquents that roamed the streets, other punks and miscreants of their ilk that she would leave behind bloodied and at times, crippled. Her gaze darkened as she looked to the ground. She'd been a dark soul then... and unlike many who came into this world, she was a true sinner. She had killed before arriving here, not a particularly high body count, but her hands had been stained with blood. Perhaps... Perhaps she had been hoping against hope that, if she killed the right kind of miscreants, she would draw out the ones who had murdered her siblings, who had slaughtered everything she had ever wanted to protect. It didn't make sense at all. But then, in the state of mind that she had been in... not much had made sense anyway.

Her hate had carried over into the afterlife. She'd been prepared to pay any cost, even if it meant being completely erased, body and soul and the whole bullshit, but she had seen the afterlife only as her opportunity to wreak havoc in God's little kingdom, maybe even to take it over, or better yet, be able to stand victorious over Him, to curse Him for the fates that she and others close to her had suffered. So her mission had begun forged in hatred, a vendetta against the so-called benevolent Father. The Afterlife Battlefront had just been a way for her to achieve her vengeance, other like-minded souls who shared her anger and wanted their chance to strike back at God. After all, they all had suffered unfair fates, had their miserable lives ended without a chance for redemption or even a ray of hope on Earth.

Somewhere... they had lost their way... _she_ had lost her way...

The SSS had somehow gentled her. Even though she was the one at the helm, the commander whose rule was unchallenged, her orders unquestioned no matter how little sense they made... she had been influenced most of all by her subordinates... She should have seen only tools, but she had never been able to see them in such a callous light, not even in the beginning. Even as they grew from a pathetically mismatched pair of teenagers into the large organization they had been before the shadows, she had... Yuri closed her eyes. That annoying NPC... he was right...

She had always cared about them.

She had loved them.

She _still_ loved them.

She hung her head, her face a mask of pain. She'd had... so much fun with them. Their war had steadily become less of a war, their battlefront less of a battlefront... It was like a giant club. All their misadventures and operations and even everything as mundane as ditching classes to practice their aim or just for the sake of ditching to avoid disappearing... She choked out a soft laugh. She'd had so much fun. The memories that she had made with them could never be replaced... None of them could ever be replaced. Noda-kun... Oyama-kun... TK, Shiina-san, the GirlDeMo members... Yui... Hinata-kun... even Otonashi-kun, who she had known for the shortest length of time... and yes... even Naoi-kun... who had even been their enemy... Kanade-chan, who had been their enemy for as long as she could remember... Their battles against her, now that she looked back, were almost more like some bizarre game... Yes... it had been… fun...

Fun...

How dare she...?

How dare she have fun?

Yuri's arms wrapped over her knees, her fists clenching into white-knuckled balls. How dare she...? When her siblings had been murdered, their short lives taken from them, dying one after another in just thirty _fucking_ minutes... How could she have had fun...? It was as if she had forgotten about them... had forgotten about how much she had loved them, what they had meant to her... She had practically raised them because her parents were always so busy with work, she had all but given birth to them... They were almost like her children... And she had dared forget about them...

And yet, even as this painful thought filled her mind, making her heart ache with grief... She knew that the memories she had made with the SSS could never be replaced. She had cared for all of them... as if they were nothing more than more brothers and sisters... family. She had loved every single one of them... and she realized with sudden clarity that they had loved her too. It was why she had fought so hard, had ignored the screaming demands of her exhausted body, pushed herself to her limits and beyond for their sake. The idea of harm coming to them had filled her with agony, agony almost on the same level as when her siblings had been murdered before her eyes. For that reason, she of course had to protect them all. She shook her head. The shadows would not eat another one of them again, not after what she had done... They would all be able to move on in peace.

But... But now... Softly, she whispered to herself, "But now I want to follow them too..."

But how could she? Her siblings... Makoto... Shouko... Yuuki... how could she forget them...? How could she allow even the _chance_ to forget them? But... everything that she had felt, everything that had kept her fighting... she couldn't feel it anymore. She reached as deep as she could into herself, but where that fire had burned... not even ashes remained. It should be her fate to remain here, alone, suffering, but... But she couldn't... She wanted to go with them...

"What do I do...?"

Yuri raised her head, but instead of the sight of smoking computers and bullet-riddled walls, she was greeted with the sight of a warm, comfortable living room... and of three smiling faces, faces that had haunted her dreams for so long... faces of the ones she had loved... Yuri stared mutely into the faces of the three smiling children.

_It... it can't be... Makoto... Shouko... Yuuki... You're...You're all... here...?_

Their smiles were as bright and loving as she had always remembered them to be. She wanted to speak, but no sound would come forth. Her body wanted to reach out for them, to touch them, to know they were real, but it wouldn't move, paralyzed with shock. Their eyes... they were as full of life as they had been before that horrible day when they had been taken from her... Nothing like the eyes that had stared back at her afterwards... the ones that gazed at her accusingly even with the emptiness of death in her nightmares. How could... this be...?

"Onee-chan," Makoto said gently, her smile lightly touched with sorrow. "You've done more than enough. You don't have to suffer anymore."

As Yuri continued to stare at them disbelievingly, the younger two nodded their agreement. Shouko said softly, "Thank you for thinking about us for so long, onee-chan. It made us all really happy!"

It was their voices alright... just as she remembered them... Something around Yuri's heart began to constrict, simultaneously squeezing out tears from her eyes despite her own prohibition against tears, tears that she had not shed since the night of their funerals, tears that she would not allow herself to shed.

"Ne, onee-chan," Yuuki said in his piping voice, gazing warmly into her eyes. "We really are happy that you're our onee-chan!"

Yuri began to shake her head, tears welling up uncontrollably though she fought them back as hard as she could.

"Idiots... All of you... idiots... How can you be happy about that...?" She clenched her fists tightly in an effort to control herself, her throat tight with her unshed tears. "How can you be happy about having such a useless older sister...? I couldn't..." Yuri slashed away her tears as her siblings looked at her, their smiles sad, but loving.

"I couldn't protect you!" Yuri cried out, her voice twisted with agony. "I couldn't... When you needed me most, I couldn't do a thing! All I did was just watch as you were all murdered! I'm... I'm a useless older sister! I-"

She was cut off as Makoto placed her hand on her cheek gently. Her eyes were welling with tears too, but she smiled lovingly. "Onee-chan... There was nothing you could have done, and you know it."

Even voiced in the childish voice that she had never been given the chance to outgrow, Yuri felt the words soothing her, a cooling salve that brought relief to her tormented soul. Her siblings gathered around her, all of them touching her, silently showing her that it was them, that it was not another illusion her guilt-ridden mind was conjuring for her. Yuri trembled at the inherent love she felt in their touch, and she felt as if they had been watching over her for a long time. She could see their sorrow in their eyes, their sorrow that they could not do anything for her while she suffered and raged against God and the world, against fate, her every breath cursing everything within sight. They had loved her in life. Even in death, they loved her still... just as she had loved them... still loved them.

"You always did work too hard, onee-chan," Shouko scolded her gently, just as she had when she was still alive, when she would see Yuri waking extra early on school days to fix them their breakfasts, make their lunches while still getting ready herself. The words left Yuri shaken, but at the same time she felt... lighter...?

Yuuki took the liberty of kissing Yuri on the forehead, just as she had done for him, for all of them, so many times in life. He smiled happily at her, not a trace of sadness in his gaze... for the time of sadness was long past. "We're glad you love us so much, onee-chan."

She felt her defenses cracking, her carefully wrought defenses that had lasted her for years, defenses that even the SSS, as much as she had cared for them all, had never fully cracked. Her hands trembled. Her expression twisted with agony again.

"You guys..." she choked out tremulously. "Please... for-!"

Makoto silenced her by gently placing her finger over Yuri's trembling lips, shaking her head gently. "No, onee-chan. We won't forgive you... because there was never anything that needed to be forgiven. You remembered us... That was more than enough."

They all hugged her tightly before stepping back, smiling lovingly. They began to fade before her eyes, the living room melting away into the wreckage that she had wrought... but the warm feeling associated with this living room remained in her heart.

"Thank you for always remembering us, onee-chan!" Makoto said.

"Un," Shouko agreed. "We really are lucky to have someone like you as our sister."

Smilingly, Yuuki added, "Just like you love us, we really love you too! Don't ever forget that!"

As they faded completely, only the warmth that she felt on her skin as the evidence that they had ever been here, Yuri felt the last of her defenses crumble. For the first time in all the painful years she had suffered ever since her world was turned upside down, Nakamura Yuri began to cry.

* * *

"Just how many goddamn computers did they steal?" Fujimaki snarled, tossing aside another bullet-riddled computer. He was none too pleased with them at the moment, seeing how one of them had spat a few sparks onto him that had been most unwelcome especially after battling those damn shadows... which thankfully were all gone.

"Quit whining and hurry up!" Noda barked. "We have to get Yurippe outta there!"

Hinata's face had been fixed in a grim set as he continued to help clear a path. There sure were a lot of computers... It had taken them hours of searching just to even find this spot, and it had taken more time to even clear this much. The walls of the rock cavern were littered with pieces of the computers they had carelessly tossed aside. Finally, a path was cleared, and he was the first to dash in, shouting, "Yurippe!"

He found her lying in the center of the room, curled into a fetal position and looking out of place among the wreckage and shell casings littered around her. Calling out to her, Hinata hurdled over the remaining wreckage in the way, racing to her side in panic. Had she been wounded? To see Yurippe in this position, seeing her so vulnerable... this wasn't the Yurippe he knew, the one he had started this fight with. Turning her so he could see her face, he saw that she was just sleeping. Hinata breathed a sigh of relief at that knowledge, though her tear-stained face still left him concerned for her.

_Yurippe... Crying...?_

"Is she alright?"

He looked up to acknowledge Otonashi, who had ran in directly behind him. Smiling, he said, "Yeah... Our fearless leader is just taking a nap right now."

"Is that right?" Otonashi replied, a relieved smile on his face.

Cradling her in his arms, Hinata stood up. "C'mon guys, let's get Yurippe outta here."

* * *

Warmth... It was faint, but after being so cold, even just the slightest warmth felt good... She heard voices around her, but in her almost unconscious state, she couldn't place them. All she could sense was that they were familiar... and the familiarity comforted her. Unconsciously, she curled closer to the source of the warmth, vaguely aware of being lifted off the cold floor.

"C'mon guys, let's get Yurippe outta here."

_Hinata-kun...?_ She'd felt almost as much as she'd heard the voice. She tried to open her eyes, to confirm the source of that comforting presence, but Yuri's eyes remained closed, her fatigue from crying so much and the strain of pushing herself so far beyond her limits taking their toll on her.

"It's alright, Yurippe," she heard that voice whisper. "It's alright. We're all here for you."

She never thought she would ever be so happy to hear that horrid nickname. Before exhaustion ushered her into sleep once more, she managed to send out one last grateful thought.

_Everyone... Thank you._

* * *

_End_

* * *

I will be the first to admit that I completely went the wrist-slitting route with Yurippe here. I love Yurippe when she's being the bossy leader, or the uncertain, flustered girl in episode 13 (damn, I went into "take it home" mode at that XD), but her sheer vulnerability at the end of episode 12 fascinated me. And yeah, I know I threw like a million "onee-chans" in there, I couldn't help it. XD If you've made it this far, please leave a review, constructive criticism in particular would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading! ^_^


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